Priority
by peppermintyrose
Summary: Sookie contemplates her break up with Quinn. Reflective work. One shot.


_Disclaimer: All of the following is thoughtfully rearranged from the original works of Charlaine Harris. So I cannot scream MINE._

* * *

This one has been percolating in my brain for a while. This is set pre-DITF - which is a couple of days away - trying desperately to get all of the fics I've been procrastinating on out before release of the new book so I can read and savour it. _Dead in the Family_ may contain additional information, but my goal here is pretty specific. A lot of emphasis is placed on the line about Sookie wanting to be first in someone's life in the community, but not much emphasis on _the rest _of what she says concerning her break up with Quinn.

For those of you who put much stock in the line "I want to be first" – rather than the surrounding text, I _implore_ you – stay away from loan sharks and Mafiosi. You are not fit to play in that pond – you'll get your legs broken.

Some people have asked me why CH put Quinn in there in the first place. Quinn is a nice man, who loves his family. He's an object lesson in what vampires will do and use against you. How far they'll push one person and how much_ they don't care. _Think Sookie can ever get free of the vamps? Suuuure – look at Quinn – number one success story. CH didn't write a lot on the page about Quinn - and so this fic is shorter than my usual, so I feel slightly guilty. :D

To those few Quinn shippers, sorry, but unless there's a worldwide decimation of vampires, or a sharp rise in weretigers who can fight in the pits, I can't see how it could ever work out between them. Not grounded in the reality of the CH supernatural world. :)

The prompts for the piece are taken directly from CH on her forum:

_"...she dismisses Quinn with a bit of insensitivity. She herself knows she's not doing it the best way." _and;_  
_

_"She thinks later, after she breaks up with Quinn, that she might be wrong, or that she could have done it better. She makes mistakes, and some of them she regrets."_

* * *

I knew why Quinn returned. Why he had risked so much - although I wish he hadn't. I wish Quinn had called me instead of coming to see me, even if I didn't know what to say. I knew why he thought he had to tell me that a relationship between Eric and I would never work out. It made me a bit sad for him. I hadn't broken up with him clearly. I hadn't found a way to tell him how I saw the situation, and I couldn't bear to be completely blunt with him.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

Sometimes I looked at my relationship with Quinn and wished it could continue. Maybe I had made a mistake that day after the takeover by the Las Vegas vampires. It wasn't so much what Quinn had done, but where he was in his life. It wasn't that he wasn't a good man. He was. I couldn't figure out if I loved Quinn or not. Certainly, he was lovable. But it had become impossible.

Quinn had been kind to me. He'd taken me on the best date that I'd ever had, barring an attack by bitten weres that wasn't in his schedule, but aimed at me. That was one night that was truly a highlight - a wonderful evening. He took me to see _The Producers _and he'd obviously put a lot of thought into the night. He'd talked to me, and for the first time ever I had a companion who wanted to do mundane things, like go to parties. We had dinner together, and even planned a barbeque before my crazy life had interrupted us. We had all the things I wanted. Most of the time, we'd simply had fun together.

But I broke up with him because our situation just didn't mesh - and no matter what, I couldn't see how we would work it out or change anything. Quinn was an impulsive man, and one who wanted very much a physical connection with me to talk out our problems. He didn't do things over the phone, and that was why he asked for a meeting, that was why he broke the rules and came into Area Five. He thought being in the flesh would help things to sort themselves out.

One of the fundamental problems that I had with him is that. He didn't try to call, and he didn't want to discuss his past. I got that he felt that his past would put me off him - but it did the opposite. I wasn't a fool. I knew that vampires would see a weretiger who could fight as an asset. I could no more judge Quinn for fighting in the pits, then I would expect someone to judge me for working for vampires. I knew what it was like not to have a whole lot of choice in the decision. Of anyone, Quinn understood my life from the position of the underdog, rather than someone who had power over me.

I knew too that he felt he had that in common with me. Quinn talked to me about how he felt that he couldn't be himself with regular girls. That they wouldn't understand, wouldn't accept his life. That they might misinterpret, or feel that he was in the wrong. He didn't need to amend what he did for a living with me, just like I didn't have to feel that I was spilling secrets to him. We could talk honestly and openly about our lives, and understood what each of us were doing.

We were also both largely alone in the supernatural world. I didn't have a whole bunch of telepaths to hang out with - there was Barry, and that was it. Quinn had his mother as the other weretiger, and she wasn't much company. When I dealt with Quinn, I didn't need to worry about pack politics, the way you did with weres. Shifters were so much easier in that regard. Quinn was one of the few remaining weretigers, and the only pack he had was his family.

That was the source of a lot of Quinn's deals with vampires. He hadn't shared those deals with me - and in the complex supernatural world, that was a problem. It ultimately lead to our break up. Quinn hadn't told me about his days fighting in the pits. I think he hoped someone else would tell me. He'd asked me if I had found out about his past the first day of the Rhodes summit.

As it turned out, Jake Purifoy allowed me to corner him until he told me about Quinn's past. I didn't care about the fighting. Quinn took protecting me seriously, and I can only imagine how he would have felt about what happened to his mother. I'd also seen him in action - when he'd taken me into the Hair of the Dog, he had virtually throbbed with power. When he'd thrown off those bitten weres, he wasn't even out of breath. Quinn was no weakling, and as often with my suitors, I could quantify how quickly he could mush me into a fine paste if he so chose. It didn't surprise me that he had killed so many men who had hurt his mother that way.

It wasn't his violent past that gave me some pause - it was the fact that he didn't tell me about it. If I knew about a problem, I could work out how to deal with it. But Quinn was always so hands on, and always needing to take charge, that he took the decision out of my hands. I had to rely on him to make decisions, and his decisions weren't always right. That didn't bode well for our future together - not in the world we lived in. Not when we were _both_ very desirable assets to vampires.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

I'd said to him that his mother came first. It was true. Quinn's mother might not like me very much, but his mother did come first. She had had a tough time of it, there was no doubt. She hadn't brought her fate on herself, but it had destroyed more lives than her own. She surely had had a tough time of things, and so by extension had Quinn. His mother hadn't been at fault for those brutal men, but they continued to cause pain in her life long after they left her in those woods. Long after Quinn avenged her and caused their deaths.

His poor mother was made terribly unstable by the attack, and of course, Frannie was a result of that. Quinn's mother broke, and he had heavy burdens to take care of. He was the only capable and competent man, and he needed to do all he could to take care of the women in his life. Frannie was a troubled teenager who needed him desperately. Sometimes Quinn's mother couldn't handle her, and Quinn would need to pick up the slack. He took care of them, and protected them.

Quinn had shown that quality to me. When we were attacked various times when we were together, Quinn always put himself in the line of fire. When the Pelts had been coming after me, he stood between me and the bitten Weres, without hesitation. He was brave and helped the people he loved. That was a good thing, and sometimes, a not so good thing. If it meant Quinn putting himself on the line, he didn't hesitate to do that, and maybe he should have. He had grit and determination to get the job done. He'd even disposed of Andre when I couldn't, saving Eric and myself a lot of trouble.

As it turned out, the death of Andre left the state wide open to a takeover. There were too few able to protect the Queen, and thus, it was ripe for the picking. Of course, it's entirely possible that the vampires of Las Vegas saw that and somehow encouraged Quinn's mother to break out. Or maybe she did it on her own. It was sure though, that Quinn's mother was a weak point for him. His sister couldn't take care of his mother, and Quinn couldn't be everywhere at once. His family took a higher priority in his life than anything else.

That's how he got into this situation with the vampires of Las Vegas. They had wanted him to go back to working in the pits, making them plenty of money. Jake Purifoy told me that he made a lot of people a lot of money. If there's one thing vampires love, it's certainly making money. When Quinn came to settle the debt for his mother, he wasn't in a good position to bargain. They'd offered at first to make his sister a whore for them, and true to style, had hit straight at the people he loved. After all, Eric had thought that the best way to get me to co-operate that night in his office was to threaten the people I loved.

Quinn didn't like that idea, as well they knew. They wanted him to go back to the pits, but thanks to Rhodes, he wasn't fit to fight for them. When faced with a tough choice like that, I could see that he'd had no choice. Quinn could have protected the vampires of Louisiana on the off chance that it meant that he would therefore be protecting me. That Felipe de Castro wouldn't get his information elsewhere. That was a big gamble to take. I wasn't a vampire, but I would be in the periphery. At the time, he had probably hoped to get a message to me, but they watched him closely.

I think perhaps Quinn just wanted to protect me totally from the impact of the takeover, but that just wasn't possible. If he'd called me sooner, even if he couldn't reveal anything, I may have been able to pick up on something. Not that it matters. His choices were bad – he picked the easiest thing that there was. Eric told me with Andre gone, there was no one to hold the centre of the regime. If it wasn't Las Vegas, it would be another kingdom.

I couldn't honestly believe that in order to save me, he should have allowed them to whore out his sister, or gotten himself killed in the pits because he was injured. That was the problem. No matter what, Quinn was a valuable asset with lots of debts to vampires. I would have made the same choices that he did – to protect those I loved. I knew too, that if I stayed with Quinn I'd make the same decisions - protecting the people he loved, when I had enough trouble protecting myself.

I could see a vista stretching out before me if I stayed with Quinn. One night his mother would break out of the home they were keeping her in, and wreak havoc. She'd kill people and cause damage. Just like the last time it happened, the vampires would swoop in and make sure that they cleaned up the mess. Then Quinn would find himself in their debt. That would be the moment when whatever life we could build for ourselves would absolutely crumble. Quinn would be given bad choices and worse choices. Last time, they'd offered to set Frannie up as a donor and whore. Next time, it could be anything that they offered. After all, the vampires held all the cards. Fairness didn't play a part in it.

They'd offer Quinn a deal, one in which I was now invested in his wellbeing, and what made him happen. Maybe they'd put him in the pits. If we were lucky, that might be the end of it – and that's not a good scenario. I'd seen the scars all over him when the Pelts were tracking us through the New Orleans swamps. Quinn would eventually get hurt. The fighting pits were obviously brutal places, where a man could get injured or killed.

That would be when the vampires started squishing us and our relationship like a bug. After all, how often would vampires want to launch a takeover of another state? That wouldn't be information that you could barter for freedom on a regular basis. What would I be able to do if they gave us a choice – whore out his sister, have Quinn fight in the pits, or they own me and my telepathy? That's of course if they gave us an "either/or" choice. They didn't need to be fair about things – not when they could threaten your family. I had little control over what I did for vampires already. I didn't want to be indebted to them.

How could I possibly ask Quinn to give up his mother, his sister, the people he loved, so that he could make my life easier? The fact of the matter is that I couldn't. I wouldn't be able to do it. If I was with Quinn, I don't know that I could bring myself to be selfish enough to refuse whatever they wanted, in order to save him from pain. I would want to help them out of the tough situation that they were in. I would agree.

Maybe it wouldn't be as straight forward as that either. Maybe one day, a vampire would decide he needed a telepath for the upcoming summit, and so he'd set in motion a chain of events that indebted Quinn and thus indebted me. It'd be nice to think that they wouldn't do that – but Sophie Ann wasn't above elaborate plans to get her hands on a rare asset.

As long as Quinn's mother was alive, she could be targeted to get to Quinn and if I was with Quinn then that would mean she could be targeted to get to me. They weren't asking him to host a tea party – they were asking him to fight, and it obviously involved some injuries. The scars he had already were considerable. Quinn could lose his life if he went into the pits, which is why I'm sure he didn't want to do that. His mother and sister were dependent on him – they needed him. I couldn't ask Quinn to place me above them, to save me from a life of servitude if it hurt them. They would be without if the vampires went through Quinn to get to me.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

My life with Quinn would be impossible. He was kind to me, and took me out. I had something similar to what other human women had, even if neither of us were quite human. But it was the same as always. I'd been focusing on the relationship part of our relationship, and forgetting the world that we existed in. The supernatural world didn't make special allowances if you loved someone – that just made them targets. Sam had been shot by Charles Twining to get to me, because I cared about him. I had been targeted by Charles because Eric cared if I lived and died. When I saw Quinn nuzzling Frannie I realised that if I stayed with him, I would not just be a target because he cared for me.

I would always be a target because I was a valuable asset. There weren't many telepaths, and we were all valued commodities. To have one work for you, or be in your debt was a great boon to the vampires and other supes. I made mistakes all down the line with Quinn because I forgot that we weren't living in a normal world, where a relationship was just that. Where it wasn't a reason for pain from the outside world. I'd forgotten, in how normal I felt with Quinn, that we weren't normal. We didn't face the same challenges as a couple that normal people did.

Halleigh had faced the difficulty of whether or not Andy Bellefleur would move out of the mansion and into their own little house together. She faced the idea that she may have to spend more time with Portia than she wished to. I wondered how Quinn's dependents would impact on his life and my life, and whether it would get us killed or enslaved to the vampires for the rest of our days. How much vampires could force us to do. Sister-in-law issues seemed a pushover compared to that.

For whatever worked between us, the good times that we'd had together, that all came crashing down in my living room that night. I saw plainly I had to make the decision as to not only whether I could be important in Quinn's life, whether we could make it work, but also how much I was willing to sacrifice for Quinn's family. I couldn't fool myself that it wouldn't mean sacrifice. Not just the usual in-law troubles that ordinary women faced, but how much I was willing to give up to help them. Halleigh might need to give up a little privacy and autonomy in order to stay with her husband's family. I might need to give up my freedom.

When it came down to it, I couldn't do that, and I couldn't ask Quinn to do that. It was too much. Even if I could, his mother and his sister needed him, and they would always come first. They came first this time, and I couldn't see it changing. I didn't break it off with Quinn because I didn't like him, even if his choosing them over me meant that he had betrayed me. I had to consider myself in that situation, and I would do the same. I broke it off with Quinn because I wasn't high on the list with Quinn – I was always behind them. What we had wasn't enough. It might be selfish, shallow and impossible in the world that we existed in, but I had to be my own priority.


End file.
